


Dam Becomes a River

by aghamora



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Healing, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-06-10 02:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 17,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15281217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: Snapshots of a family, in thousand-word drabbles.





	1. The One with the Bed Sharing

**Author's Note:**

> In the midst of trying to work on another AU I once again got sucked back into this post s4 fluffy family multi-chap concept thing I had in progress, which was really going nowhere until I came up with the idea to limit myself to around 1k words per chap. I'm far too lazy to make it exactly 1k words each chapter, but the idea of brief little snapshots of Frank and Laurel and Christopher has been pretty fun so far. Hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Title from['When the Pain Dies Down' ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1upCCKA6YS8) by Chris Stills.

“Hey, I’m turnin’ in for the night. You got him down okay?”

She glances up from Christopher’s crib at the sound of Frank’s voice, finding him there in the doorway. He’s sweatpants and t-shirt clad, clutching the baby monitor in one hand, and Laurel turns toward him, giving a little nod.

“Out like a light,” she says. “You’re not sleeping in here?”

Frank shrugs. “Figured I’d let you have the bed, crash on the couch downstairs. Got the baby monitor, so we can still take turns.”

He’s so apprehensive she can feel it in the air. He doesn’t want to overstep, that much is clear, and she wilts, hurt by the realization that it’s because of her, because she’s spent the last few months lashing out at anyone and everyone and he was more often than not caught in her line of fire. She was unfair. Sometimes cruel. Many times both.

But now, in the aftermath, in whatever this is – their own murderous little happily-ever-after, she supposes – it’s time for her to fix what she’s broken.

“You’d have to go all the way up and down the stairs every time,” she yawns, plopping down on the bed. “Just sleep in here.”

“You sure?”

“How many times have we slept in the same bed before?” Laurel scoffs. “If we’re doing this whole co-parenting thing… pretty sure boundaries are gonna be out in the window in like a week anyway, when we’re up to our ears in dirty diapers.”

Still, he hesitates. “I didn’t wanna make you fe-”

“Look,” she tells him finally, more weary than exasperated. “You stayed, okay? When anyone else would’ve gotten as far away from me as possible. When I got… locked up in the psych ward. You saw me at my worst, and you never left, so I’m not-” She huffs, frustratingly incapable of saying what she really wants to say in any way that makes sense. “I’m not gonna make you sleep on the couch.”

Frank relents after that and makes his way over to the bed, settling down onto the side next to her; the right side, the side she remembers he’d always used to sleep on, which she realizes she’d left open for him subconsciously. It’s an entirely new rhythm they’re settling into, with Christopher a new factor in the equation, and yet it feels shockingly familiar, too, like nothing ever changed.

“Sure you’re not gonna try to put the moves on me now that you got me right where you want me?” Frank jokes, and she rolls her eyes.

“Fortunately for you, my crazy pregnancy sex hormones seem to have died down.”

“Fortunately?” he grins wickedly as he slides beneath the covers. “Not quite sure I’d say that.”

Laurel huffs and reaches over to turn off the light, bathing the room in darkness. She lays on her back for a while, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the sound of Frank’s breathing beside her, unsure what to say, the silence like a weight on her chest – though this feels undeniably easy, somehow, at the same time. They’re still finding their footing and their way together, but she feels good about him, and this, whatever _this_ is, nameless and label-less but oh so real.

“I can’t believe Bonnie let us stay here,” she remarks, after a while, too awake to go to sleep and sensing somehow that he’s in the same boat. “Especially after…”

She trails off, but Frank picks up on her meaning. “We’re family. She knows that. Blood thicker ‘n water and all that.”

Not the family kind of blood, it occurs to her; a kind that’s far more sinister. They’re drenched in it, bound by it. It made them a family that night in the woods, so many nights after. Blood has made them all a family, their lives so inexorably intertwined Laurel knows there’s never going to be any sort of normal for them again, even if they lie to themselves and say there is.

Silence, again. Normally she isn’t one to feel obligated to fill silences, but she does, now, shifting beneath the comforter with a sigh. She can feel Frank’s eyes on her through the night, appraising her without a word, until finally-

“C’mere.”

She glances over in surprise and finds Frank with his arms folded above the covers, giving her a nod and signaling her to come closer. The distance between them feels unnatural and they both know it, and when once Laurel would’ve bristled, now she slides over almost without thinking to tuck herself against him. His arm wraps around her, body shifting to accommodate her at his side, and oh God, she’s missed this; more than she’ll ever admit. More, she thinks, than she even knew.

They don’t say anything for a long time, only lying there with Frank’s hand on her arm, stroking idly up and down her skin. He smells like she remembers, crisp soap from a shower and the freshness of fabric softener and aftershave, and it calls up a flood of memories; of times they’d laid like this after sex, the lines between their naked bodies going blurry until they didn’t seem to exist at all. Laurel reaches up to toy absentmindedly with the fabric of his t-shirt, and after a while she sighs.

She must sound pensive, because Frank frowns. “What?”

“Nothing,” she murmurs, grasp tightening on him without meaning to. “I’m just… glad you’re here.”

“Where else would I be?”

“Well, I’ve given you about every reason in the book to run for the hills, so.”

“Like I didn’t do that too?” Frank quips. “You said I saw you at your worst? Hell, you saw me at mine. When I left. You still wanted me when I came back.” He laces his fingers through hers, playing with them in the moonlight as he speaks in a way that hypnotizes her, in a way he doesn’t even seem to have to think about. To him, she thinks it’s as innate as breathing to intertwine himself with her, speaking his words with all the cadence of a poem.

“Don’t leave, again,” she says before she can think better of it, the words rushing forward, almost as if not saying them for another second will cause her worst nightmare to become reality. “Ever.”

Frank presses his lips to her forehead, urging her closer. “Nah. I’m in this for the long haul. Come hell or high water or – y’know, a monsoon of dirty diapers. Anything.”

She laughs, free and full. And afterward she wraps herself in the night, wraps herself in him, and falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.


	2. The One with the Brown Bag Lunch

“How do I look?”

Laurel appears in the bathroom doorway like a dream, all freshly washed hair and soap scent, clad in a snug brown dress with a blazer over it. She isn’t wearing much makeup, at least not from what he can tell, but she glows in the morning light regardless. She almost seems to walk on air.

He’d be a cliché son of a bitch if he said that it takes his breath away. ‘Takes his breath away’ isn’t near dramatic enough anyway. Steals every last atom of oxygen right out of him, more like. Wrings it clean out of his lungs like she never intends to give it back.

“You…” Words fail him altogether. All he can come up with is: “Wow.”

That makes Laurel relax, and she rolls her eyes with a grin. “I need an actual opinion other than _wow_ , okay? It’s my first day back, I need to look-”

“Crazy goddamn beautiful. And if ‘crazy goddamn beautiful’ ain’t what you’re goin’ for? Badass and professional as hell.”

That finally coaxes a full smile out of her. “That’s more what I was going for, thank you.” He comes to a stop close enough to her that she has to look up to meet his eyes, and she does just that with a sigh, pulling her blazer forward around her middle. “I don’t look, uh… I mean, it doesn’t look like I gained weight, does it?”

“I’ll say it again,” Frank murmurs with a smirk, leaning close enough for his lips to brush hers. “Crazy. Goddamn. Beautiful.”

Her smile this time is more forced than anything, and after a moment Laurel sighs and steps away. “You’re gonna be okay alone with him today, though? You think I pumped enough? And do you thi-”

“It’s fine,” he soothes. “We got enough bottles. We got enough everything. Lil C’s gonna be fine with me; all you gotta do is go out there and kick some ass.”

Doubt flickers in her eyes again. “Maybe I should just call Bonnie, tell her I need to push back my return date another week, I…”

Laurel goes quiet, and all at once, in place of doubt, he sees something far darker in her: this potent, mounting fear as the seconds tick down before she has to leave. She’s fidgeting like she has insects crawling under her skin, so scared he can nearly feel it radiating off of her, and it doesn’t take Frank long to identify the source of it all; after she came close to losing Christopher not once but _twice_ , of course she would be afraid of losing him again. She has the same separation anxiety any new parent would – only amplified a thousandfold, terrified that her father will materialize out of thin air to secret her son away somewhere once more.

“I know you’re worried about leavin’ him,” Frank comforts her. “I get it. But you got so much goin’ for you, Laurel, you can’t give that up-”

“Do I?” she scoffs. “I had an interview with Legal Aid, y’know. Beginning of the year, right after I decided I was keeping him. And I just… didn’t even show up. I think I was scared. I think I thought if I had him I wouldn’t be able to do it. I blew that, a-and I’m so far behind on my classes who knows if I’ll ever catch up.”

“You will,” is all he says, voice full of quiet conviction. Laurel blinks.

“How can you know that?”

“Just do.” Again, the simplest of words. To him it’s the simplest thing: knowing that she’ll succeed. There’s no version of reality in which she _doesn’t_. “I know you can. You can do anything. Saw that fire in you, first time we met. Never seen anything like that in anybody else. You’re gonna do everything you ever wanted and more, I know you will. Now-” he cuts himself off suddenly, making his way over to the dresser where he’d stowed a brown paper bag. “You’re gonna be late. Made you lunch.”

He’d hesitated to do this; to make Laurel a lunch like he was sending a middle-schooler off on their first day. But he also knows how infrequently Laurel ever allows anyone to take care of her in even trivial ways like this, and he knows, even though she will never admit it, how bad she needs it. So he’d taken a chance, packing a Tupperware with some lasagna and writing a little note, signed by both him and Christopher, cheesy as all hell but something he knows she’ll cherish.

This is all so normal. Things lame, dorky families do. Things he never imagined _he_ would do. He half-feels like at any second this life will crumble to pieces around him, like he’s been living in a dream all along, but he sees her smile, right then, and he doesn’t have to pinch himself to know how real this is.

“You-” She seems dumbfounded by the bag, turning it over in her hands like it’s covered in hieroglyphics she’s trying to decode. Laurel settles on giving an incredulous laugh. “You made me lunch.”

“Well,” he admits with a shrug. “Leftovers. Lasagna. Note in there, too.” He winks, walking over to the crib in the corner and retrieving Christopher. “Just in case you start missin’ us too much.”

Laurel smiles and hesitates one final time, before finally turning to go, but not before pressing a hasty kiss to Christopher’s forehead, then raising herself up on her tiptoes to peck him on the cheek.

“Give ‘em hell,” he tells her when she pulls away, and Laurel smiles, heading for the door with that old confident stride he’s missed so much.

“Always do.”


	3. The One with the Twofer

“It doesn’t really count as taking turns if you get up every time, y’know.”

Frank’s head snaps in her direction from his spot in the armchair where he sits, Christopher nestled snugly in the crook of his arms. The baby looks as content as she’s ever seen him, and so does Frank, and for a second she feels bad breaking the spell of the moment, him sitting and holding her son cloaked in the thickness of the night; a peaceful, moonlit silhouette.

The second Frank held him for the first time, she knows he fell in love with him. She thinks she fell in love with Frank all over again then, too. Really, it’s been a continual process, and she falls another inch further right then when Frank grins at her.

“Wanted to let you sleep,” he explains quietly as she makes her way over to them, settling down onto the armrest. “It wasn’t his hungry cry, he was just fussin’.”

All his crying sounds roughly the same to Laurel when she’s half-asleep, if she’s being honest, and she folds her arms as the baby gives a soft snuffle. “You can tell the difference?”

“Yeah. Next time he does it I’ll show you.” He lowers his voice to a whisper as Christopher’s eyelids flutter closed. “Ey, there we go. Easy peasy.”

She marvels in silence, for a second, before scooting closer to Frank. “You’re so good with him.” Laurel pauses, then glances sideways at him. “He loves you.”

“Think so?”

“I know so. I see it when he looks at you.”

“Good.” Frank looks her way, eyes impossibly tender. He still seems astounded by Christopher from time to time, completely taken aback by the mere fact of his tiny existence. “’Cause I love him right back. Love the hell outta him.”

They both laugh, and afterward they’re silent, for a moment, reveling in the serenity of it all; the calm after the storm, this little safe haven they’ve carved out for themselves in the rubble. They’ve all suffered so much, Laurel thinks.

After everything, they deserve some peace.

“My parents wanna meet him, y’know,” Frank pipes up, as he strokes a finger idly across Christopher’s downy head. “I keep hypin’ him up as the best baby ever. Think my ma might’ve knitted him a hat or blanket or somethin’. Probably both.”

Her chest tightens, all at once. She hadn’t ever contemplated that that would be a reality for her son: grandparents. With her father in prison and her mother God knows where, it’d never seemed in the cards. She’d been certain she would be her son’s only family, and the thought shouldn’t have scared her shitless but it had; to think she’d be solely responsible for loving him. Annalise would be there, she knows that of course, and the others too – but ultimately, it would all fall on her.

“I never, uh… never thought about that. That he could have grandparents,” she admits. Frank glances back down at the baby, shifting him lightly in his arms.

“’Course he will. He’s gettin’ the whole deluxe, Costco-sized Delfino package. My ma and pops. Six aunts and uncles. Like fifty cousins. He’s gonna be so loved he’s not even gonna know what to do with himself.”

“I was scared,” she confesses, all at once. “When you found out he wasn’t yours… you wouldn’t want anything to do with him anymore. That I was gonna be alone, and I wasn’t gonna be able to love him enough. That he’d… grow up like I did. Like Wes did.” Laurel smiles, but it’s a watery smile, laced with sorrow even though she’s so unbelievably happy. “Now I know he won’t.”

“You’re his whole universe,” Frank reminds her. “You don’t need me, my fifty cousins, anybody else. Just you? You’d love him more ‘n enough, Laurel.”

She couldn’t do this alone. She’d convinced herself during those nine months that she could, stubborn and headstrong, but after her son was born the reality of it came crashing in brutally. She couldn’t have done any of this alone, she knows that now.

Because of him, she never had to.

“I love you,” she blurts out suddenly, almost panicked with the need to say those words; to tell him how she feels. She held them back for ages, for so long they both started to believe she would never say them again, and now that she has, she can’t stop. It’s like she’s a child, like she’s learned her first words all over again and they’re all she can say, over and over.

Something about knowing how much her son loved him too made her able to say them again, unlocked that place inside her. Made her remember how. And when Frank grins right then, in that subdued, awestruck way he always does when she says those words, like he’s basking in the warmth of them, she’s so, so glad she is.

“You hear that, kid?” he whispers to Christopher, who has mostly drifted off and seems thoroughly uninterested in these declarations of love. “I thought when I snagged your ma I was gettin’ just one person who loved me. But then you came along, and I got a twofer. Crazy how love works, ain’t it?”

He’s always loved her son effortlessly, through something like osmosis. He loved all parts of her, and her son was a part of her, and so he loved him unquestioningly, DNA be damned. It is crazy how love works, she thinks as she watches the two of them. Crazy how easy it is to remember, but the heart is a muscle, and she figures, like any other, it must have muscle memory too.

This right here, she thinks, is falling in love in a thousand new ways, as much as it is remembering.


	4. The One with the Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing on with this lil fic... hope you all enjoy! Leave me some comments/drop a kudo if you're so inclined.

“Frank. Frank, wake up!”

He’s jolted back into consciousness by Laurel’s hand on his arm and her voice calling his name.

Frank blinks, eyes acclimating to the darkness of their bedroom, and finds her there beside him in the midst of shaking him lightly. There’s a flash of red over his vision, right then, as his groggy mind separates reality from nightmare, as Laurel’s cries echo in his skull and fade gradually.

For a moment all he can see is the blood. It was everywhere in screaming color, screaming bloody murder. Droplets on the floor of the elevator. Smeared on the insides of her thighs and coating her hands, coating his. The entire world a gory sea of red, so real and yet – not real. _None_ of it was real.

But it was. For her.

“Sorry,” he manages to choke out, running a hand over his beard. He can feel himself trembling, the vibration quivering in his core, rattling through him like an earthquake. He’s shaken to pieces, held together only by her touch. “I’m sorry, I-”

Laurel places a hand on his back. “The elevator one again?”

He feels ridiculous; selfish, in a way, that he should be the one having this nightmare when he wasn’t even there, when he didn’t have to endure the horror she did and _she_ should be the one tormented instead of him. It’s always the same: him in the elevator with her, trapped and helpless and watching her bleed, watching her lose the baby. He beats his hands bloody trying to rip his way past the gate, and he’s never strong enough.

He wakes with screams dying in his throat. Words on the tip of his tongue: _I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do._ Every time, he’s always useless to her. Every time, he can’t do anything but watch both of them wither.

Watch both of them die.

He nods, mouth dry, unable to look at her or say a word. He can feel disgust slithering beneath his skin like a snake, and subconsciously he recoils from her touch as if he’s been burned, a bone-deep, visceral reaction he can’t prevent.

All that. The elevator. His fault. She shouldn’t be touching him. She shouldn’t want to be anywhere near him.

Laurel remains undeterred and moves closer, resting her chin on his back. “It’s okay.”

He doesn’t have to explain the nightmare to her; she knows it well. He’s had it half a dozen times before, and he’s certain she has, too. When he glances over at her, for a moment the nightmare bleeds back into his world, and her skin is pallid, sickly with death, the bed beneath them soaked in blood. Laurel wraps her arms around him, and her touch scalds, and he wants to tell her not to touch him, but again can’t find the words.

“You almost died. I almost lost you.” He gulps heavily. “I keep… I keep almost losin’ you.”

Laurel doesn’t say anything. She only tightens her hold on him from behind, as if to tell him silently: _I’m here_.

“I almost-” His voice sticks in his throat. “I almost killed both of you.”

“It was an accident, Frank, you know it was an accident,” she soothes, sighing. “You can’t keep torturing yourself over it.”

She has every right to blame him, and she doesn’t, and even so he can’t stop blaming himself. He’s managed to make his peace with it outwardly, but somewhere in the periphery that self-loathing is always lurking. It won’t seem to stop taking hold of him in his dreams – but then he feels Laurel taking hold of him too, one arm around his middle and the other stroking his back, and she feels so much more powerful than those thoughts are; an anchor of a girl.

“You never meant to hurt me. Or him. You never would.” He feels her press a kiss to his shoulder blade over his t-shirt, then turn her head to rest against him. “And you didn’t hurt him. He’s so strong. You know how strong he is.” She pauses. “I’m strong, too. I’m okay.”

The drum of her heartbeat. The warmth of her skin, the power in her grip. The way she manages to drown out his demons with all her quiet strength. She _is_ strong. She’s so alive; incredibly, improbably alive. He almost lost her, almost lost Christopher, and they all almost lost each other but they _didn’t,_ and he recognizes the nightmares for what they are now. Like a hand trying to drag him down to hell. Like a chorus of sinister voices all whispering their poison in his ear.

Laurel is stronger than they are, as she sits there holding him in silence. Laurel is so much louder than they are.


	5. The One with the Apartment Hunt

“So this unit is a two bed, one bath. Newly renovated. It has secure entry, off-street parking, in-unit laundry. Pets are allowed, but only cats, and that’s an additional fee of thirty-five dollars a month. Do either of you have any questions?”

Laurel looks at Frank, and Frank looks back at Laurel, and they stare for a moment, before finally she shakes her head at the leasing agent. “No, I, uh, I think that’s all we wanted to know.”

“Would you like a moment to look around?”

Laurel smiles. “That’d be great.”

Frank thanks her as well, and with a nod, the woman leaves them to it. It’s only once they’re alone that Laurel lets herself deflate, because all these gleaming hardwood floors and new appliances and freshly-painted walls only look like dollar signs to her. Although once she never would’ve dreamed of having to worry about money, the FBI had seized her father’s assets, seized her trust fund right along with them, and left her largely shit out of luck.

“It’s nice,” she remarks a bit glumly, and Frank nods.

They both watch the sun reflect off the blonde hardwood for a moment, and then he glances her way. “Too nice?”

“Too expensive,” she sighs, glancing at the papers the leasing agent had given her. “Utilities aren’t even included in this price. But it’s… perfect. And right by school. Safe.”

“Good school district, for Chris,” he chimes in, “if we’re still around here in a few years.”

Laurel glances around the open floorplan, into the kitchen, down the hall into the bedrooms. It’s not enormous, not big at all for a two-bedroom, but she grew up with _big_ and all she really needs now is _enough_. And it _is_ enough; enough for a little family. Their little family. She can picture it furnished, toys littering the ground, picture it cozy and warm on a winter’s night with Frank at the stove cooking dinner and her sitting on the floor with Christopher. It’s only an empty apartment now, but she can see it as a home.

The images cycle in front of her vision like a View-Master flicking through slides, all picturesque, idyllic tableaus, and when she grounds herself in reality again, she finds that Frank has moved to stand closer to her, watching her imagine in silence. She thinks he might be doing the same thing, and for a moment he lets them imagine together, before finally opening his mouth to speak.

“I know it’s more than you were thinkin’. But we need a good place for him. A safe place. We can make it work.”

 _We can make it work_. The words bring a smile to her lips. They always do.

They always find a way.

“This feels… right,” she murmurs as she steps into the center of the room, standing in the sunlight and letting it stream over her. “I have a good feeling about this one.”

Frank steps into it with her, rummaging through his manila folder of other apartment listings for a moment. “Sure you don’t wanna look at the rest?”

He hands her a few papers, and after her eyes scan them for a minute, Laurel frowns. “These are all three-bedrooms.”

“Yeah,” he says, a bit sheepish. “Y’know, in case you wanted me to have a separate room. I just-” He pauses, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Didn’t wanna assume.”

Laurel wilts at his caution, that careful distance he still maintains with her almost instinctively from time to time. He got so used to her wanting that distance that he still sometimes seems to falter when he fears he’s getting too close.

She doesn’t want that distance anymore. And so she takes a step closer to him, eradicating it in seconds – because if he isn’t sure, she can be sure enough for the both of them.

“You don’t have to do that,” she tells him, a bit sadly; apologetic for all that she’s done to him, the harm she’s only beginning to repair. “I want you in the same room as me. I want-” Laurel cuts herself off and looks up to meet his eyes, shining as bright and clear as they’ve ever been. The sun warms her all over, warms both of them, but they’re close enough now to warm each other too. “I want you to assume, okay?”

Relief sweeps over him, and Frank smirks, moving in closer as his confidence grows. “Can I assume somethin’ right now, then?”

She plays coy. “Maybe.”

“ _I_ assume…” He drifts off, gaze dropping down to her lips, “that you wanna kiss me.”

Laurel raises her eyebrows in pseudo-surprise. “That’s a bold assumption.”

“You did say you wanted me to assume.”

Laurel laughs, and he kisses her until his laughter joins in with hers, until they’re more laughing into each other’s mouths than they are doing much kissing at all. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did.”


	6. The One with the Torts Exam

“Got my torts exam grade back.”

She’s sitting on the sofa with Chris when Frank steps through the door, messenger bag slung over one shoulder with his books inside. He’s sweater and sneaker-clad and looks almost comically studious, but there’s a furrow in his brow and a certain deflated way about him that leads her to believe this won’t be the good news they both were hoping for.

Laurel perks up, angling herself and Christopher toward him when he takes a seat beside her. “And?”

Frank sighs and liberates the Blue Book from his bag, plopping it down on the coffee table before her with a dejected sigh. In bright red pen, a large, circled 65 stares disapprovingly back at them.

“I fucked it up,” he mutters, before remembering Christopher is there and correcting himself. “Messed. Messed it up. Sorry, buddy, don’t repeat that.”

Laurel hands Chris off to him, picks the exam up, and begins to flip through without a word. The exam is only one hypothetical, with a fact pattern and questions, followed by his response; several pages of analysis in very neat handwriting. She knows for a fact that his penmanship is awful as a rule, always has been, and she can see the effort he put into forming each letter, though when she skims it, the contents are all over the place, not organized in any sort of IRAC format and even completely missing an issue or two she spotted in the text. It cuts off prematurely halfway down one page, and she gives him a sympathetic look, setting it back down and turning over the grade so neither of them can see it.

“Ran out of time?”

Frank nods, more frustrated with himself than anything, beaten-down and discouraged.

“I thought I had that aced before I even walked through the door. I thought workin’ for a lawyer… I’d be good at all that already.” He frowns, dodging Christopher as he tries to tug clumsily at his beard. “But workin’ for Annalise part-time, takin’ care of him, all my other classes… I don’t know. I guess I didn’t study enough.”

“Issue spotting and doing those hypotheticals is a skill,” she reminds him, inching closer on a sofa and tucking her legs up underneath her. “You get better at it the more you do it. Like, y’know, the stuff on the LSAT. Logic games. You sucked at those when you started, right?” She strokes a hand idly across Christopher’s head, and Frank watches her do it in silence, nodding. “Everyone does. I did. You get better at it.”

“Being at the top of the class is everything though. Gets you the best jobs. I’m never gonna get close if I keep pullin’ grades like that.”

“You don’t need to be at the top of the class. I mean, look at me.” Laurel grins, though her class ranking is far from a funny joke at this point. Maybe more of a morbidly funny one. “I am definitely nowhere close.”

“I know.” He looks over at her with a profound sadness about him that makes her chest tighten. “But I wanna be the best. So I can give you the best.” He turns to Chris, who hasn’t relented in his beard-grabbing mission. “So I can give you the best, too.”

Laurel scoots closer, until she’s pressed up against Frank’s side, and reaches her hand across his back and shoulder blades, rubbing gently. “We don’t need the best; we just need you. And… remember how you told me I can do anything I want to?” His eyes brighten, for a moment, twinkling with recognition. She smiles. “You can, too.”

“I’m not smart like you, though.” He shakes his head. “I’ve always been dumb. Annalise told me once I didn’t have the basic common sense to be a lawyer.” Frank swallows. “Maybe she was right.”

“You’re not dumb. Don’t call yourself that, Frank, I know you’re not dumb. Chris knows you’re not dumb too, right?” She lightens her voice, raising it into that childlike, higher register she uses to talk to him. “He believes in you.”

That finally gets Frank to loosen up, unclenching his jaw and unfurrowing his brow. A ghost of a grin even plays at his lips. “Does he now? You rootin’ for me, bud?”

Christopher just stares up at him with wide, uncomprehending brown eyes, sticking his fist back in his mouth after finally giving up on yanking at Frank’s beard.

Laurel chuckles. “Of course he is. He’s your little hype man.”

Frank picks him up, holding him against his shoulder on the side opposite to her. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything, just looks at him with silent adoration and so much love she can feel it radiating off of him, before he murmurs, “Yeah. You’re the best little hype man there is.”

Frank reaches his arm out, motioning for her to move over, and she does, letting him wrap it around her with a content sigh. They all fit together so naturally, like puzzle pieces; mismatched and torn, but still good. This is the greatest good Laurel ever could have imagined, and she rests her head on the cushion beside his shoulder, letting the peace of this moment wash over her.

“One bad grade isn’t gonna doom your GPA. You’re gonna do better next time,” she tells him, certain of it in the same way he’d been certain of his faith in her. “I’ll dig up my old outlines and help you study.”

There’s warmth in his eyes when he looks over at her, little blue flames. “You don’t have to do that for me.”

“No,” she acknowledges, grinning cheekily, and takes his large hand in hers. “But I want to.”

She’s far too settled in and sleepy and warm to want to move, and so they sit together there like that for the longest time without a single word spoken. The exam lies before them face down on the coffee table, all but forgotten.

This is what she lives for, now: these little moments. They’re all she wants forever.


	7. The One with the Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first in a four-part lil saga.

“Look, babe, all I’m sayin’ is one little Tylenol isn’t a big deal. He’s teething. I read it’s supposed to make him feel better-”

Laurel grinds her teeth, turning to him with a scowl. “And _I’m_ saying he’s way too little to be taking medicine. It could hurt him, Frank.”

“Yeah, if you give him like six of ‘em. One’s fine, I called the doctor-”

“I’m not giving him Tylenol,” she huffs and folds her arms. “It’s not up for debate.”

She’s exhausted; that strung-out, burned-out, at-wit’s-end kind of exhausted, because classes and an internship and childcare are absolutely not conducive to a healthy sleep schedule – and neither is a teething, miserable Christopher, who seems cranky at all hours of the day no matter what she or Frank does to appease him.

“Okay, fine,” Frank relents, standing in the middle of their den; the battleground for their latest disagreement. “Then what about a carrot or somethin’? We can do that with the teething ring, might make him wanna eat more.”

Again, she shuts the suggestion down. “He could _choke_.”

“Okay, you’re not-” Frank exhales in frustration. “I spent all mornin’ looking stuff up, Laurel, and you won’t even listen.”

“Why do you think you get a say in anything?”

She should regret the words the instant they come out of her mouth, but she’s too tired to focus on much of anything besides the pounding behind her eyes and the heaviness in her limbs. Frank blinks, visibly hurt by the implication.

“Gee, I don’t know. Guess I just figured we were doin’ this together.”

“You’re not his father,” she continues, fully aware of how cruel she’s being and for some reason unable to stop herself. “Y-you’re never going to _be_ his father, Frank, even if you keep pretending you are, so you can stop playing house. You’re not fooling anyone.”

She might as well have slapped him. Spat in his face. Kicked him right in the gut and knocked all the wind out of him. He just stares at her for the longest moment in the world with a look of betrayal, until finally there’s something else bleeding into his expression; this horrible understanding, resignation. Like a man suddenly realizing a lie he’s believed his whole life is precisely that: a lie.

When he starts to speak, she feels like she’s been slapped right back.

“You don’t really want me here, do you?” he asks, simply. He asks the question like he already knows the answer. “You want him here.”

He doesn’t have to say Wes’s name for both of them to know what he means. Laurel furrows her brow, opening her mouth to say something, but he keeps going in that low, sullen monotone. He’s surrendering, she realizes with a spike of terror. Giving up.

“He’s the one you really want. And he’s gone. And I’m… what? Just some stand-in. Replacement.” He isn’t biting out the words, aiming them like bullets and firing away. He’s just saying them, as if devastated by the truth he believes they hold. “This ain’t gonna work. If you’re always just gonna be wishin’ he was here instead of me. That isn’t-” He pauses, meeting her eyes. “That isn’t fair to either of us.”

Her stomach plummets. She hadn’t been thinking about her words. Hadn’t meant them. Hadn’t at all considered how badly they would hurt him.

Hadn’t ever considered that they could be the last straw.

“What’re you-” she chokes out. “What’re you saying?”

“I-” She can feel his pain even from across the room, how agonizing these words are for him to speak. “I’m tryin’, Laurel. I’ve been tryin’ for so long. But I can’t… I can’t be the only one tryin’, forever. I said I would wait, but-” He shakes his head. “I think we both know I’m waitin’ for something that’s never gonna happen.”

Her breath hitches, panic coiling inside her. “Frank-”

“I love you. And I love him. I love him so goddamn much I don’t – I don’t even know how to say it. But you’re right.” He looks so incredibly sad right then she feels something deep inside of her break, her heart itself splitting clean in half. “I’m not his dad.”

 _You are_. The words bubble up in her chest, chew at her like acid, try to eat their way out of her. There are a thousand reasons she isn’t ready to say them, because she’s ready for those three little words again, to give them and receive them, but she sure as hell doesn’t feel ready for _those_ two, even if they’re the only thing she knows he needs to hear.

She remembers the night he told her about Lila, how he’d held so many things back while she’d poured herself out to him. Now, their roles are drastically reversed. He didn’t let her leave that night without trying to get her to stay. She walked away in the end, but he fought tooth and nail to stop her, giving her all his darkness. Telling her his bad things.

And now he’s turning to go, and she can’t do the same.

“I’ll go,” Frank mutters quietly and heads for the door.

There’s something in the way he moves that makes her realize he believes he’s doing what’s best for her: removing the burden of himself from her life, allowing her to stop pretending she wants him here when she doesn’t, like this has only been a masquerade all along. She has so many things she wants to say and yet she can’t seem to find her voice to say any of them.

_I love you. You are his father. Please. Don’t go._

“Frank, don’t-”

The sound of the door closing echoes like a gunshot.

She’s too late. She’s always too late.


	8. The One with Bonnie's Couch

“You should list this couch as your permanent address; you sleep on it enough.”

Frank glances up at Bonnie, finding her standing before him proffering a bottle of beer. He hesitates, then finally grabs a hold of it, taking a deep swig and mumbling, “Hilarious.”

“I’m guessing this has something to do with Laurel,” Bonnie says as if she knows, and she _does_ know, because he’ll admit it; he’s a predictable asshole, and Bonnie’s couch always ends up being his temporary refuge when things go wrong in the Laurel department. “She kick you out?”

“No,” he grunts and takes another, longer drink. “I left.”

She looks like she can’t quite believe it. “ _You_ left? You.”

“Yeah, why?”

“Nothing, I just thought-” She shakes her head. “I never thought you’d be the one to leave.”

He scoffs. “You sayin’ I’m pathetic?”

“No. I’m saying you love her. Almost blindly.” She pauses, reading him for a moment in silence and sinking down on the chair across from him. “It must’ve been bad to make you leave.”

Frank lowers his eyes, feeling the alcohol hit his system, buzzing warm in his bloodstream, and he’s missed the feeling. He mostly gave up drinking while Laurel was breastfeeding in an act of co-parent solidarity.

As some stupid fucking way of ingratiating himself. Idiot. He was an idiot.

He inserted himself into a life he didn’t belong in. A family he would never belong to. He knows that now.

“We got in a fight. It was stupid, over Chris takin’ Tylenol. She just-” He cuts himself off, playing the words on repeat in his brain and trying to pretend they don’t burn nearly as much as they do. “She just snapped. Told me I wasn’t his dad. Told me I was pretending, playing house. That I wasn’t foolin’ anyone. Well-” He chuckles humorlessly and takes another sip. “Nobody but myself, I guess.”

“And that made you leave? She’s said worse things.”

“Yeah, but…” He drifts off, shaking his head. “I thought we were past all that now. I thought she wanted me there. I thought we were… a family.” Another dark chuckle. “I am fuckin’ stupid, see?”

“Frank…”

“The whole time she was pregnant. Everything after, with her dad… I thought if we could just get past all that, we’d make it work. We’d figure it out. And then we got past all that. And she still-” His voice cuts out. He swallows. “She still feels that way. That’s the definition of insanity, ain’t it? Just doin’ the same thing over and over and thinking something will be different.”

Again, he pauses, and this time Bonnie doesn’t attempt to fill the silence. She’s sensed his need to talk and her need to listen, even though if he were in her shoes he probably would’ve kicked his sorry ass out the moment he opened his mouth and started lamenting the state of his love life. He’s sure she’s damn sick of hearing it. _He’s_ damn sick of hearing himself.

“I love her,” is all he settles on muttering, finally. “I thought that would be enough. I thought… I thought that I could _make_ it be enough.” He drains the last of the beer and sets it on the coffee table. “But it’s never gonna be.”

Bonnie’s gaze is steady, analytical. “You don’t think she loves you?”

Laurel had started to say something right as he stepped out the door. He’d pretended he hadn’t heard her – but he had. He can hear her softest whispers, hear her thoughts even through the silence. He always hears her.

He strongly suspects she was trying to tell him she loved him. And so for the longest time, he’s silent, before muttering glumly, “I don’t know what the hell to think, anymore.”

“You’re a good man. You stayed with her when anybody else would’ve left. And not just anybody would stick around to raise someone else’s kid-”

He cringes inwardly. “I didn’t do it for that. To be – what? Honorable? I didn’t do it to be a good guy, Bon, we both know I’m not. I did it ‘cause I love her. And I love Chris. But she’s right; I’m not his dad. I should just…” Frank clenches his jaw. “I should just stop tryin’ to make myself somethin’ I’m not.”

“So what? You’re giving up?” Bonnie shoots back, in that unflappably direct way of hers. “Everything you’ve been through with her and it’s over after one fight?”

“Haven’t you been listenin’, it’s not just-”

“I’ve been listening,” she answers calmly, folding her hands on her lap. “I think you lied when you said you don’t know if she loves you. You do know. And I’m not saying her lashing out is okay, but… I think she’s still scared, of the idea of letting you get close to her. To Chris, mostly. I think she knows he should have a father, and she knows you want to be that for him. And that scares her, maybe makes her think she’s being disloyal to Wes.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be his dad,” he says, eyes locked on the ground. “I shouldn’t. I’m not… not good enough.”

Bonnie pauses, lips pursed tightly in thought and long-buried pain bubbling to the surface in her eyes. At last she sighs and straightens her back, in a decisive way that makes him glance up at her.

“Look. My biological father wasn’t a good man. He did horrible things to me. You don’t think if I could’ve chosen to have a better man as my father who wasn’t my blood I wouldn’t have done it in a heartbeat? Or if Chris could choose to have a good man as his father instead of growing up without one – you don’t think he’d choose that?” She pauses. “There’s the family you choose and the family you get stuck with. And you choosing to be his dad, not doing it just because you accidentally knocked a girl up and got saddled with a kid… What, you don’t think that means more?”

He knows she’s right, and so does she, and so Bonnie rises to stand, quietly triumphant, grabs his empty bottle of beer, and heads for the kitchen, but not before calling over her shoulder:

“And fortunately for you, you’re the family _I_ choose. Otherwise who else’s couch would you host your monthly Laurel Anonymous sessions on?”


	9. The One with the Pinky Swear

“Hey. Hey, shh, shh. It’s okay, mijo.”

Christopher doesn’t seem even mildly pacified by her reassurances. If anything, it only makes him wail louder.

He’s been inconsolable ever since Frank left, it seems, exacerbated by the pain of the new teeth she can see starting to poke up through his gums like tiny germinating seeds. Frank had always pointed them out to her, watching their progress and keeping track diligently in a little notebook to report back to the pediatrician.

Frank always seemed to know how to calm him down when he got in moods like this; red-faced, hoarse from screaming, little face soaked in tears. He didn’t even have to try. Never had to. Sometimes she thinks he was better with Chris than she was.

_Was_.

Suddenly, she feels a whole lot like crying, too.

“You miss him, huh?”

Christopher only continues carrying on, howls escalating in volume as he squirms about on the bed where she’d laid him. Laurel wonders, for a moment, if he can sense something is missing, sense the hole in the world Frank had left behind.

She wonders if he can feel it the way she does.

“He was good to you. So good,” she mutters, sniffing and scrubbing the tears from her cheeks more aggressively than she needs to, as if keeping Chris from seeing her cry will actually accomplish anything. “He loved you. And I fucked that up for you.” She can feel herself crying openly now, not making any attempt to hide it. “I’m sorry.”

She had something good – so good. They both did. And as she has a habit of doing, she took that good thing and smashed it to bits, pushed it away, because part of her doesn’t believe she ever really deserved it. He’d stayed, waited for her; wanted her, and her son that wasn’t his. He wanted both of them and he never wavered in that, not once.

It freaked her the fuck out to be loved so unconditionally. It still does, like she was always waiting for some ulterior motive to reveal itself, for him to decide the package deal of her and Christopher wasn’t something he’d signed up for and bail.

He never did. And so apparently, she had to take it upon herself to ruin things anyway.

“He wanted to be your dad,” Laurel tells him, as if somehow he can understand her, carrying on a one-sided conversation like an old cat lady. “You would’ve liked that, right?” Christopher finally quiets a little, sobs fading into hiccups when it seems like her own tears have only just begun. “Yeah. You loved him too, I know you did.”

“I just got scared,” she confesses. “You should have a dad. Right?” Chris just blinks up at her with those honeyed brown eyes she remembers vividly, and she knows, suddenly, what’d made her hesitate to let Frank in in the first place. “Your real dad’s gone. I felt like I was… trying to replace him, that I was doing something wrong.” Laurel gulps. “So I ruined a good thing for you. Your ma’s a real screw-up, huh?” She smiles fondly through her tears. “That’s what Frank always called me. Your ma.”

Christopher blows a saliva bubble between his lips in what she imagines must be silent confirmation that she is, in fact, a real screw-up. She sighs, feeling herself deflate and drying the last of her tears, then drying his too with the end of her sweater sleeve.

“I miss him,” she says, lying down beside Chris on top of the comforter and rolling over to face him, tucking her hands beneath her head. “You miss him?”

This apartment feels empty and too big and all wrong without Frank in it, beside her in bed or in the next room over cooking dinner or studying on the couch with Chris on his knee. She feels like a Jenga tower one piece away from collapsing in on herself. _Missing_ a piece. He was that piece, for her. She had no idea how much she needed him until he was gone.

That’s her MO, after all.

“Your dad,” Laurel mumbles, testing the word out on her tongue. It feels right – not foreign at all in reference to Frank, because it’s what he _is_. It’s what he has been for months, and he wasn’t the one fooling himself; she was. “You miss your dad?”

Chris just wiggles his stubby legs. Laurel can’t tell for sure, but if she had to venture a guess, she’d say it looks like a leg-wiggle of affirmation. A leg-wiggle as if to say: _Yeah, I do. So go fix it, dumb dumb._

“Yeah. Okay.” Laurel pauses, pursing her lips. “I’m gonna fix it, all right?”

Chris glances her way and gives another leg-wiggle, this time to say, _Promise?_

“I promise,” Laurel tells him, leaning over to peck him on the forehead and wrapping her pinky around his. “Pinky swear, Little C.” The nickname falls flat, and she swears she can even see a frown on Christopher’s face. Laurel heaves another sigh. “That’s only cool when he says it, isnt it?”

Chris doesn’t have to do any leg-wiggling that time for Laurel to have her answer. She flops over onto her back with a huff, feeling extraordinarily lame.

“I’m gonna go get him back,” she declares after a moment, feigning confidence in the hopes it will conjure up some inside her. “I’m gonna go get your dad back.”

This time, all she receives by way of response is a disbelieving stare. Something she imagines is along the lines of: _You sure it’s gonna be that easy?_

“No,” she concedes. “But nothing worth fighting for ever is, kid.”


	10. The One with the Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten chapters! WOO! This thing is shaping up to be about 20 ish chapters, might be more or might be less. Really it just depends on the flow of the inspo.
> 
> Let me know if you're still out there enjoying!

“Hey.”

His stomach ties itself into a knot the moment he sees her.

It’d always used to do that back during her first year, those first few months they existed in each other’s orbits but never got close. He’d hated it; he’d felt like a goddamn teenager. He thought at his age he should be beyond puppy love and schoolboy crushes and heart palpitations and all that flowery bullshit. Usually, he _was_.

Until Laurel. He was a lot of things until Laurel. _Until Laurel_ feels almost like a measure of time, a boundary point on the timeline of his life after which everything changed. B.C. and A.D. and _Until Laurel_.

She shifts in the doorway awkwardly when he doesn’t greet her back. “Can I…?”

“Yeah,” he says and steps aside, and that’s all he says, at first.

He should be angry with her. He should be done with her, but the truth of the matter is that he _isn’t_ , that he doesn’t remotely want to be. Can’t really even _pretend_ to want to be. So he lets her in, and she comes to a stop in the middle of Bonnie’s living room, setting her purse down on the sofa and folding her arms.

For a long while neither of them says anything, and he’s never seen Laurel look so unsure, so small. Maybe because she was almost always the one doing the leaving, it occurs to him. She was never the one who was _left_ , and she doesn’t seem to know how to conduct herself when she doesn’t have the upper hand, when she’s the one crawling back.

“Chris, um…” Laurel swallows, tightening her arms against her like shields. “Chris misses you.”

He raises his eyebrows. “He the only one?”

“No,” she admits. She drops her arms down, disarming her defenses in one fell swoop. “I miss you.” Laurel pauses, as if trying to find the right words. “I was… I shouldn’t have said all that. About you not being his dad. I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, Laurel.”

“ _None_ of what I said was true,” she tells him suddenly, seeming almost surprised at the force with which she speaks the words. “You are. His father. I don’t _care_ what that DNA test said, okay? You have been for months, I just-” Laurel shakes her head. “I don’t know. I felt like I was… erasing Wes. Like calling you that was gonna make it seem like he never existed.”

“You don’t have to say all that,” Frank murmurs. “Just ‘cause you think it’s what I wanna hear.”

“You know it’s true.” Laurel gives a watery laugh. “And I do want you there, with us. I don’t wish you were Wes, I want… I want _you_. And I’m trying, Frank, I am, I just, sometimes-”

The words come out in a frantic rush, a flood. All at once the tension floods out of him too, and before Frank knows it he’s moving forward as if in a dream, drawing her into his arms, because it’s the only place she feels right. That distance from her feels all wrong. That distance belongs in the past, with past versions of themselves – not the people they are now.

“Hey,” he soothes, as she curls her arms around him. “I know. I know you are, Laurel.”

She’s chilled from the cold, still clad in her long wool coat and dusted with snowflakes, and when he buries his nose into her hair she smells as fresh as that snow, as warm as home. His home was never any apartment, any building, any temporary, arbitrary place he laid his head. Until Laurel he was a vagabond, a drifter.

She was his home, all along. His home and his hearth and his everything.

All he wants to do is hold her, hold her forever and never let go, but after a moment she draws back to glance up at him. “I didn’t… I didn’t love him the way I love-”

He knows at once where she’s going, and before she can start, he stops her.

“You don’t gotta do that,” he interrupts softly. “Make it a competition. Some more or less thing to make me feel better. I know you loved him.” Frank lowers his voice, the ghost of a smile crossing his lips. “And I know you love me. That’s all I need to know.”

She’s quiet, for a time. Then, Laurel rests her head against his shoulder, releasing one long breath he wonders how long she’s been holding. “I couldn’t do this without you. Chris. Any of it.”

This time he’s the one to move back. Frank reaches up, tucking a windblown strand of hair behind one of her ears. “Yeah you could.”

“No,” she repeats, more firmly this time. “I couldn’t.”

“I’m sorry I left.” He swallows, his own guilt weighing heavy on his shoulders. “I shouldn’t have.”

“You didn’t leave,” Laurel mumbles, as if frustrated with herself. “I drove you away, that’s different.”

They’re silent, after that. They don’t need any more words or trite apologies. They’ve both already forgiven each other. Hell, he thinks they both forgave each other before she even walked through the door tonight, because it was a stupid fight from the start, and it could never be the final fracture in what they have when they’ve already survived so many broken bones and battle wounds, things that would have torn any other two people apart for good.

Maybe he left for the sake of leaving. Maybe she pushed him away because she was scared. Neither of those things matter, now.

“Little C really misses me, huh?” Frank asks after a while, grinning.

Laurel smiles back, and he’s missed that smile. It’s like the sun. His compass. True north. It guides him. He’d do anything just to catch a glimpse of it.

“Yeah,” she chuckles. “Think he’s missed his old man.”

Frank snorts. “Old?”

“He’s missed his dad,” she corrects herself. Laurel pauses, growing serious all at once. “He’s missed you.”

He opens his mouth, about to say something, but Laurel cuts him off without warning, almost frantic with the need to say whatever she’s going to say, as if afraid she’ll somehow be too late, again.

“Come home with me.” She seems to falter right then, lose her confidence, because she adds, very quietly, “Please.”

She doesn’t have to ask twice.


	11. The One with the Old Fogies

“I want you.”

Laurel blinks, looking up from the E-book she’d been reading on her phone and across the bedroom to find Frank there in the doorway. There’s a certain look in his eyes, pupils shot through with hunger, the intensity of which makes Laurel blink.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he says as he crosses the room in a few long strides and falls into bed, crawling atop her, tossing her phone to the side and peeling the sheets off of her. “I want you.”

Oh.

Okay then. This is a thing they’re doing now. _Right_ now, apparently.

She wouldn’t say their sex life has been… lackluster since Christopher came. That’s not the word she would use. It hasn’t been spontaneous, she’ll admit. It’s certainly been far from nonexistent, but amid the trials and tribulations of new parenthood, and the long days and sleepless nights, they haven’t had nearly the time for sex that they used to.

They make up for the lack of time with passion – even if they have to pencil passion into their calendars now. But it’s still not what it used to be, because _nothing_ is like it used to be, and the force with which he comes at her right then almost startles Laurel, when once it would’ve been nothing more than routine. He seems oddly determined, like he has something to prove.

He kisses her before she can ask any questions, and after a moment Laurel breaks away. “Chris down?”

“Down for the count.”

“Frank… Slow down, what’re-”

He ignores her and has both their t-shirts tugged up and over their heads in what must be Guinness World Record Book timing, along with her terrycloth pajama shorts. He buries his face into the hollow of her throat and sucks at her pulse point, hard enough to mark her, as if he’s _trying_ to mark her. She can already feel her body awakening at the pleasant – if unexpected – onslaught, and she moans, settling back against the pillow and luxuriating in the attention.

“The hell’s gotten into you?” she breathes, still laughing despite her best efforts to play along with his over-the-top, Harlequin romance novel-esque seduction. There’s something more frantic and less suave about it that gives her pause, though; something decidedly _not Frank_.

“ _I_ ,” he begins, as he lays a trail of kisses along her jawline, “have not gotten into _you_ in five days.” He pauses, flushed and breathless, that predatory stare transforming into something far more disarming. “I’m not lettin’ us become lame old fogies who screw twice a year, okay? Not happenin’.”

“We’re not-” He cuts her off with a kiss, and she keeps going, muffled against his mouth, until finally breaking away again. “We’re _not_ lame old fogies, what’re you-”

Finally, Frank stops, allowing them a moment to have an actual conversation. Concern flickers in his eyes, like ripples in the pond of his façade, and suddenly there’s less of frantic, intent-on-ravishing-her Frank and more of genuine, puppy-dog-eyed Frank; the Frank she recognizes.

“I just-” He sighs, the act fading away at once. “You were too tired last night. I was studyin’ the night before that, and the night before that you had to work late. I dunno, I just-” Frank sighs. “I’m scared we’re gonna eventually stop wantin’ each other. That we’re just gonna be a boring-ass couple who only does it missionary position under the covers with the lights off, like, once a month.”

“That’s… oddly specific.” Frank sighs, lowering his head, and Laurel cups his cheeks to bring it right back up. “That’s not gonna happen to us. I want you.” She can feel the blush creeping onto her cheeks, her neck, creeping lower still. “I’m never gonna stop wanting you.”

They pump the brakes for a second, taking a moment to pause, before Frank meets her eyes once more.

“Sorry I was kinda overzealous,” he apologizes, sheepish, but Laurel isn’t having any of it.

Because if he isn’t going to finish what he started, then she’s going to make him.

“Don’t apologize,” she says, all bedroom eyes all at once. “You know I like it rough.”

That’s all the invitation Frank needs.

He’s upon her again in seconds flat, cupping her breasts, sucking and stroking them until she moans. They’re almost unrecognizable after the number breastfeeding did on them, but he can’t seem to get enough of them, nor can he seem to get enough of her wider hips or the little paunch on her belly no amount of crunches can seem to eradicate. He loves her body as much as he always has, and she revels in his, stroking her hands up and down his abdomen, the bulk of his biceps, the corded muscles of his back, feeling their power beneath her palms. He’s heavy atop her, but he feels, at the same time, like not enough, like she wants him heavier on top of her, _all over_ her. _Inside_ her.

And then – then, it happens. She does the unthinkable.

She yawns.

She honest to God doesn’t mean to. She doesn’t even know where the yawn comes from, but before she knows the traitorous thing is bubbling up and out of her, and Frank is glancing at her, half-amused and half-offended.

“If you’re yawnin’, I’m not doin’ this right.”

“Sorry,” she hastens to apologize. “Sorry, I’m into this, really, I just-”

A moan cuts her off when he nips at the spot on her neck he knows drives her mad, and drive her mad it _does_ , until suddenly-

Another yawn. Not her own, this time.

She looks down, and Frank is cupping his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his own yawn and temporarily abandoning her neck.

She smacks him on the arm. “Are you kidding?”

“I’m good,” he tells her after he recovers, but hardly seconds later he’s yawning again. “Sorry, I, uh-”

Neither of them is really into this, she can tell, and so, the mood sufficiently killed, she nudges him off of her.

“Let’s just do it tomorrow, okay? I get off early, you’re done with class at three,” she suggests and curls herself into his side. “If we start at 3:30, we have an hour before we have to pick Chris up at daycare.”

He wraps an arm around her and gives a sleep-eyed grin. “Gonna pencil me in then, huh?”

“Mmm.” She hums, pecking him on the cheek. “Send you an Outlook calendar invite.”

A moment of silence passes. Then, Laurel sighs.

“We’re officially boring, aren’t we?”

“Nah,” he counters, with a wicked glint in his eye. “And tomorrow at 3:30 sharp, I’m gonna remind you exactly how _not_ boring we are.”


	12. The One with the Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every fic with a slow dance needs a soundtrack for that dance... [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvW63QsIxts) is the one for this. It's an extraordinary lovely song and my fav at the moment.

“Dance with me.”

Laurel blinks up at him incredulously over the rim of her champagne flute. “You dance?”

“No. Do you?”

“Your game really isn’t what it used to be, is it?”

Frank huffs, mockingly exasperated but still not retracting his hand. “All right, smartass, just dance with me already.”

Finally, Laurel gives in with a smile and lets him lead her out onto the dancefloor, underneath a large banner that reads _Congratulations Connor & Oliver!_ in shimmering golden letters. Weddings have never been Frank’s scene, but Laurel had asked him to be her date, and that, coupled with the allure of an open bar and free food, and maybe the miniscule bit of genuine fondness he has for Connor and Oliver, had been enough to get him to haul his ass here.

He takes inventory of the room as they step into the center of it together. The grooms are on the dancefloor too, hand in hand and playing grab-ass and not really attempting to do much dancing at all. Annalise bounced half an hour ago. Bon is across the room at the bar, sharing drinks with her date from the DA’s office, who reminds Frank very much of a human Q-tip. Michaela and Asher are pointedly ignoring each other, with her alone at the bar four drinks deep and him dancing with Christopher in his arms, swaying from side to side.

And then he looks back at Laurel as he pulls her against him, all done up with her hair in some elaborate twist and clad in a floor-length green evening gown that fits her like a dream, and everything else fades away for a second.

They don’t have many excuses to go full black-tie anymore, that’s for sure, and he realizes he’s never seen her like this before. Between the bi-monthly murders, they never had time to go on real dates, and now with a baby they don’t, either, and won’t for a long, long time. He just lets himself marvel at her, for a moment, as the lights dim low and a slow song he doesn’t recognize comes over the speakers.

She’s so beautiful he can’t breathe, and sure as hell can’t be suave in any way, shape, or form. She’s probably right; his game isn’t what it used to be, because she throws him off his game and makes him nervous and scares the absolute hell out of him, and he loves her more than he knows how to handle.

“Reminds me of prom,” she muses, as she presses in closer. “We leaving room for Jesus?”

“Newlyweds sure as hell aren’t,” Frank remarks, glancing over to find them doing some sort of drunken grinding movement together several yards away. “Why should we?”

“I’m gonna step on your toes, by the way. They kicked me out of ballet when I was nine because I was too awkward.”

“You could never be awkward,” he says. “You’re way too damn beautiful.”

She scoffs and loops her arms around the back of his neck. “Stop.”

“I mean it. You are.”

“Mmm. Well.” She melts against him, molding her body to his and letting him lead. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

They sway in silence for a while, because that’s all they’re really doing: swaying, their feet rocking back and forth but not doing any sort of choreographed movements. He doesn’t know how to dance, and she steps on his toes at least twice like she’d warned, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. It’s enough just to be near her, feel the warmth of her body and breathe her into his lungs like oxygen.

Like oxygen, he couldn’t exist without her.

“I can’t believe they really did it,” Laurel comments, breaking the silence. “Connor is definitely _not_ the marrying type.”

“Maybe Ollie changed him. It happens.” A pause. “You changed me.”

He’s expecting Laurel to dodge this conversation by whatever means necessary – but surprisingly, she doesn’t.

“Did I now?” He grins, and Laurel tilts her head to one side, eyes narrowed as she reads him. “Sometimes I feel like we’re more of an old married couple than they are.”

“You ever think about it?” he asks, nudging the question forward cautiously. “Gettin’ hitched?”

It’s a loaded question if there ever was one, and he can feel her apprehension, the way she goes tense.

“As a general concept or as in… you and me?”

“Either.” Frank inches closer, so close her forehead almost rests on his chin. She exhales, and it tickles his cheek. “Both.”

“As a general concept, I used to think it was stupid. I thought real love didn’t exist. I’m a child of divorce, so. That explains a lot.”

“Still think that?”

Laurel shakes her head, the movement so slight it’s almost imperceptible. He can see her pupils dilate, and she swipes her tongue across her lower lip, and when she finally meets his eyes again, he can tell he’s thrown her off her game, too.

“No,” she admits. He places a hand on the small of her back, and the tension flows right out of her, like a floodgate opening. “So maybe you changed me, too.”

Their swaying all but comes to a stop; he realizes they really aren’t doing anything other than holding each other in the middle of the dancefloor, and people are probably wondering what the hell they’re doing, but in that instant, he can’t bring himself to care.

This reception hall might as well be empty. They might as well be the last two people on earth.

“Why do you ask?” Laurel asks, but it’s a question he thinks she already knows the answer to.

Frank plays it off as casually as he can manage. “Oh, y’know. Just for future reference.”

“Ah. I see.” She huffs a laugh. “Well, also for future reference… I love you. So. Keep that in mind.” She gives him a knowing smile. “Just for future reference.”


	13. The One with the Burnt Chicken Soup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you're still digging this! Drop a comment and lemme know :D

“Your temperature is 102, Frank, you cannot go to class.”

“You can’t stop me,” comes his muffled protest from underneath a Mount Everest-sized pile of blankets, and Laurel has to bite her tongue to keep from outright laughing.

She has to admit; there is something comical about tall, jacked, physically intimidating Frank being taken out of commission by a microscopic virus. Christopher’s daycare is a veritable petri dish for all sorts of illnesses, it turns out, and they’d both seen this coming a mile away, after he’d volunteered to take care of the flu-stricken baby so she could avoid getting sick too and missing work and class.

Now, she’s just going to end up missing work and class anyway to take care of _two_ flu-stricken babies.

“No, I can’t,” she admits, setting the thermometer on the nightstand and sinking down onto the bed beside him. “But you can’t even make it out of bed, let alone all the way to campus.”

She can’t see his face, cocooned under the blankets with the rest of him, but after a moment the pile shifts slightly, and he huffs.

“Christ, can we turn up the heat? It’s like fuckin’ Antarctica in here, I need a damn parka.”

She hadn’t expected Frank to turn into such a whiny drama queen while sick; normally he’s more the grin-and-bear-it type, silently self-sacrificing to the end. It’s amusing, more than anything, and she rises to stand, crossing the room and opening the closet.

“You’re already under every blanket we own. I’ll get the heating pad.”

She plugs the heating pad in, sets it on medium, and tosses it his way. One of his hands pokes out to grab it before disappearing under the covers once more, and it reminds her vaguely of a turtle poking its head out of its shell.

“You gotta leave soon, don’t you?” he asks after a moment, and Laurel sits down on the bed once more. He must feel the pressure on the mattress next to him, because he mutters, “’Ey, don’t get too close, I’m under quarantine here.”

“I called off work already. And I’m pretty sure between you and Chris my fate is already sealed, so.”

Finally, he peels back the covers enough for the top of his head to poke out, forehead covered in a sheen of cold sweat. “How’s patient zero anyway?”

“I gave him some Motrin and put him down. He’s on the up and up, I think. Unlike you.”

Frank grunts. “I feel like shit.”

“Yeah, you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” he deadpans. “Your bedside manner needs work, y’know.”

“There’s a reason I’m gonna be a lawyer and not a nurse,” she quips and rises to stand, heading for the doorway. “I’ll make you some chicken soup.”

“ _You’re_ gonna cook?”

She’s always been hopeless in the kitchen; it’s the reason Frank ends up cooking most of their family meals and she takes on the other household chores. They both know it, and so Laurel doesn’t bother pretending to act offended; she just shrugs.

“Campbell’s. Out of a can. It’s idiot-proof.”

Famous last words.

She ends up managing to burn the soup somehow anyway, leaving it on the stove to tend to Christopher when he starts up again on his feverish fussing and forgetting about it completely. When she returns thirty or so minutes later, all the broth has boiled off and left the noodles and chicken chunks charred on the bottom of the saucepan. She hangs her head in shame but brings it to Frank anyway, who is still underneath the heap of blankets and doesn’t seem to have moved at all. If she couldn’t see the blankets rising and falling with every breath he takes, she might almost think he was dead.

“Wakey wakey,” she says, feigning enthusiasm. “Breakfast in bed. Or – well-” She checks the time on her phone. “Lunch, I guess.”

Frank peels the blankets off and sits up, not looking much better than he had before, sweaty and pale and shivering. He stares into the bowl in disbelief and beats down a smile, a look on his face like he’s holding back laughter.

“I – okay.” He bites his tongue for once in his life. “Uh, thanks.”

“Turns out it wasn’t idiot-proof,” she admits, sheepish. “Chris was calling, I got distracted.” She does feel genuinely guilty, frowning apologetically and pouting. “I’m sorry I burned your soup.”

“Nah, I know Little C’s gotta come first.” Frank chuckles. “Gotta admit though, I’m almost impressed you managed to burn canned soup.”

Laurel sprawls out next to him with a sigh. “At least you know the chicken isn’t underdone.”

“You know it comes pre-cooked and you’re just heatin’ it up, right?”

She sends a glower his way. “Okay, shut up, Iron Chef Delfino. I tried.”

“It’s the best chicken soup I’ve ever had,” he says, bringing a spoonful of noodles to his mouth and swallowing them with a surprisingly well-suppressed grimace. “Scout’s honor. It’s got that smoky, grilled flavor. Kinda works.”

She can’t help but smile, rolling over to face him. “You’re just being nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

He looks at her gently, all this tenderness packed into his gaze even when she’s gross and greasy and covered in snot and hasn’t showered in three days – or has it been four? The fact that she doesn’t know and he doesn’t care speaks volumes, that they can both see each other at their worst and still want each other with the same intensity they did the night they first kissed. She reaches out to take his hand, still mindful of his self-imposed quarantine, and Frank smiles, the midday sunlight pouring in through the blinds and lending the entire room a hazy, soft focus quality. She could almost believe she’s in a dream, for a second.

“Thanks for takin’ care of me,” he tells her. “You didn’t have to.”

“In sickness and in health, right? You took care of me when I needed you.” Laurel smiles, small and sincere. “Wasn’t gonna let you languish in your deathbed all alone.”

She remembers that night before Chris came home, when Frank fed her spaghetti and meatballs and told her she needed to be strong for him. And she’s repaid him with burnt chicken noodle soup and the flu, but she’s getting there.

 One day, she knows, she’ll get there.


	14. The One with Christmas Eve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's a bit in this that is blatantly recycled from a previous fic of mine that I've since deleted. Normally I hate doing that and wouldn't, but that fic was a standalone and here I can actually DO something with the concept, which I thought was too interesting to just end forever in that fic. So. I hope you can forgive a bit of self-plagiarism lol, and I promise there will be future payoff.

“I got you something.”

Laurel stops bouncing Chris on her knee for a moment, looking at him with a frown. “I thought we said no buying presents.”

“I didn’t buy it,” he tells her with a grin and reaches under the Christmas tree, where he’d stashed a small wrapped box. “It was… given to me.”

This time, she just blinks. “So you’re regifting?”

“Not exactly. Just open it.”

Their apartment is dark save for the golden, glimmering lights on the Christmas tree, emanating from the little corner in which they’re all huddled together, side by side with Chris in Laurel’s lap. It’s a fake tree, because Laurel was worried about him crawling around and ingesting pine needles, bought secondhand – but still just as festive, all adorned with ornaments and a star at the top.

He was always a notorious Scrooge around the holidays. More like Scrooge’s alcoholic cousin on a bender, really, because he’d usually just spend Christmas Eve in a dive bar somewhere, chasing tail and taking home the first girl in reindeer antlers that proved willing. He’s never liked the holidays much at all, but something about experiencing them with Laurel and Christopher makes this feel like his first Christmas Eve all over again, brand new and exciting.

He seems to see everything through Christopher’s eyes, these days. First Christmas, first snowfall, first Thanksgiving, first everything. It gives him an appreciation for every day that he has; a childlike fascination with the smaller things in life he’d forgotten to cherish. He’s learned so much from him, this tiny human not even a year old yet who can’t speak or walk or feed himself. It never ceases to amaze him.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Laurel demurs, as she tears off the wrapping paper. “I told you, I just want-”

The wrapping paper falls off. And immediately, she goes still.

She peers down at the small, black velvet ring box in her hand like it’s an asp, like it’s going to bite her the second she moves. Laurel looks plainly horrified, all locked up with terror, and he swears she even stops breathing for a moment.

“Frank…”

“Open it,” he urges, and numbly, not knowing what else to do, she does, finding the ring inside staring back up at her.

It catches the lights from the tree when it comes into view, all the facets of the diamond sparkling. It’s on a platinum band; nothing fancy, ostentatious, not new or well-polished or exceptionally brilliant, but striking in its simplicity nonetheless. That doesn’t seem to lessen any of Laurel’s trepidation, though, and he feels her tense up even more at the sight.

But he saw this coming. So, voice low and even, he begins to explain.

“It was my ma’s. She gave it to me after that first time she met you. Said she knew it was meant for you then, wouldn’t hear any different. I always kept it, after, even when we weren’t together. I thought maybe I was stupid for doin’ that, but… I think she knew, somehow. That it was always yours.” He pauses as he gauges her reaction. “Look, before you freak out, this isn’t me askin’, okay? We both know we’re not ready. I get it.”

Her voice is hardly a whisper. “Frank…

“I just… wanted you to have it, whenever you are,” he continues. “Keep it in a drawer, somewhere, ‘til then. And when you are ready, someday, just put it on then. You just let me know. Doesn’t gotta be in a year. Hell, it doesn’t gotta be in _ten_ years. I’m not askin’ for today. Just… just someday.” His throat feels as dry as cotton. He swallows. “That’s all I want.”

He’s always known Laurel would never respond well to a conventional proposal, being knelt down in front of and given some grandiose, cliché speech and put on the spot like that. This feels right, giving her total agency, leaving the timing completely up to her. Giving her everything and letting her decide what to do with it. It might as well be his beating heart in that box, but he doesn’t need an answer now, a definitive _yes_. He’s here without expectations or a need for immediacy. He just needs the possibility.

He told her once he would wait for her, after all.

She’s silent for so long he’s beginning to wonder if he’s made a horrible misstep, ruined _right now_ by bringing up the prospect of _forever_. Laurel looks skittish like a spooked horse, but she isn’t running, or moving a muscle, or really doing anything at all. She’s still just staring without a word, and when she finally tears her eyes away, she looks to Christopher – not him.

“What do you think, mijo?” she lilts, though he can hear her voice quivering slightly. “You approve?”

Chris reaches for the box, ostensibly intrigued by anything shiny, and Laurel holds it just out of his reach but still lets him look it over, make the final call. He has a look of wide-eyed wonder on his face, transfixed by the diamond, and after a moment he shoves his fist in his mouth and makes a chipper squeal in a language all his own; something Laurel must understand to be a confirmation, because at last she lets herself smile.

“He’s cool with it,” she says, closing the box and pressing it against her chest, her heart. “I am, too.”

Frank loops an arm over her shoulders, tugging her closer and laying a kiss on her forehead, before he turns his attention to Chris.

“Thanks for puttin’ in a good word for me, Chris Cringle,” he whispers, as if Laurel can’t hear him, and she laughs when Frank pecks him on the forehead too with an exaggerated _muah_. “My little wingman.”

They settle back against the wall eventually, the stillness of the night washing over them. Chris reaches up to grab clumsily at one of the ornaments on the tree, another shiny object capturing his attention. They watch him together and fill the room with their laughter, and when Chris has finally lost interest and plopped back down onto Laurel, Frank leans over to kiss her properly.

“Merry Christmas,” he murmurs against her lips. “And a Happy New Year.”

She holds the box tight in her hand and kisses back. And for once, he knows it’s going to be.


	15. The One with the DILF

“Who was that girl you were with Monday?”

Laurel knows, objectively, that she’s being stupid. She’s at a point in her life where she’s fully capable of recognizing her own stupidity and calling it what it is.

But that doesn’t mean she has to _stop_ being stupid.

It’s been nagging at her all week, since she’d met Frank on campus for lunch and come upon him walking with another girl; a pretty, petite, blonde 1L, who was smiling too brightly and walking just a bit too close. On Tuesday he’d been getting texts from the same girl – _Natalie from my study group,_ he’d called her, before excusing himself from the room to go take pictures of one of his outlines for her – or so he’d said. On Wednesday he had a study group that ran late, and she knows he only has one study group; one study group this Natalie must also be in. It’s a logical assumption.

Now it’s Thursday, and she’s been driving herself crazy over it all week for some reason she isn’t even sure of. Frank would never cheat on her. Rational Laurel knows that.

Stupid Laurel doesn’t know what to believe. Because Stupid Laurel can only remember his penchant for screwing students when she’d first met him. 1L’s. _Students of the month_ , like his girlfriend had sneered at her. She never knew much about that girlfriend – Sasha, she thinks her name was, but suddenly, terrifyingly, she feels like she can understand her.

Laurel asks the question as casually as she can manage, trying her hardest not to sound jealous, and Frank frowns, glancing over his shoulder where he stands at the kitchen sink, loading the dishwasher.

“Who?”

“The blonde one,” she elaborates, jaw tight, and sets a stack of dirty plates beside him with more force than necessary. “The, uh, pretty one.”

“Oh, Natalie? Yeah, we’re in the same study group.”

“Oh,” is all she says. “Okay.”

She must sound skeptical, or overtly jealous, or probably both, because Frank stops what he’s doing completely and turns to her, eyes narrowed.

“ _Oh, okay_? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Laurel says, and completely fails to play it off nonchalantly.

She sees the realization fold out onto his face in stages. Finally, Frank raises his eyebrows, amused.

“What, you think I’m screwin’ her or somethin’?”

“No,” she says a bit too quickly, then lets out a breath and retreats to the kitchen island. “I don’t – I don’t know. She was walking close to you. You both were… smiling a lot. And, I mean, she’s hot. I wouldn’t blame you. If you thought about it.” She fiddles with the stem of her wine glass to avoid looking at him. “Or… did it.”

Without a word Frank makes his way over to her, coming to a stop beside her where she stands, facing away from him. He’s got that familiar disheveled air about him after a long day, hair messy and clothing rumpled and a spot of carrot puree on his jeans, courtesy of Christopher. He’s looking at her softly; no anger or defensiveness.

“She’s my friend,” he tells her, honestly. “I’m not screwin’ her. You really think I’m gonna ever want anyone but you?”

“It would be easier for you, though. She doesn’t have a kid. Less baggage. She’s younger. She’s… generally perkier.” Laurel frowns. “Someone like her would be easier for you.”

She doesn’t think about it often anymore, but from time to time the thoughts bubble to the surface; of all he’s done, given up for her and her son, how she still isn’t sure she deserved any of it. It’s her own insecurities being projected onto him, she knows, but she still can’t shake them, no matter how hard she tries. She’s so scared of losing him sometimes she thinks she’s invented reasons she will.

“Nah,” he tells her, without hesitation, without even blinking. “’Cause if I was with anybody else, I’d just be spendin’ all my time wishin’ I was with you.”

She exhales, exasperated by how goddamn effortlessly _perfect_ he is sometimes. “Frank-”

“I want you.” He presses in closer, so close she can feel the tension she holds in her shoulders starting to release almost involuntarily; a Pavlovian response to the heat of his body, the smell of his cologne, the deep rasp of his voice. “I want you much as I did the day I met you. I want you _more_ than I did then. I want you more every day. I want you and him and all the baggage you got. Besides,” he jokes and reaches over, rubbing her back idly, “you know I only go for brunettes.”

“How could I forget,” Laurel snorts and turns back to her wine. “She was totally hitting on you, though.”

“No way.”

“Yes she was, did you really not notice?”

Frank shrugs, resting his elbows on the counter beside her. “She did say once I was a DILF.”

“Wait, she said you were a DILF and you _didn’t think_ she was hitting on you?” Laurel can’t help but chortle, imagining Frank the former gigolo man-whore extraordinaire really being that oblivious.

“She’s like 22. Kids these days say all kinds of weird shit for no reason, I thought it was a joke.”

Laurel scoffs. “You’re going senile, old man.”

“Do not call me that, okay, that ain’t even a little sexy.”

“Well, for the record, she’s right. You are a DILF,” she quips, draining the last of her wine and fixing him with a territorial look. “But you’re _my_ DILF. So she better back off.”

Frank narrows his eyes, a smirk spreading across his lips as he realizes what she’s fishing for.

“How ‘bout this? You gimmie a few hickeys tonight, I go into class tomorrow with the Laurel Castillo seal of ownership, she knows I’m off the market. Or-” He grins, coy. “Could always just put a ring on it.”

“Mmm,” she hums and leans in close, pressing her lips against his neck. “ _Or_ … why not both?”


	16. The One with the Birthday Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, no matter what happens tonight in the premiere, good or bad, we shall always have fic, and as such here is my last pre-s5 update. This fic will continue on its current AU timeline regardless.
> 
> Enjoy!

“How’s the birthday boy doin’?”

Frank surveys the damage in their den as he sinks down next to Laurel and Chris on the sofa. Asher had gotten a bit overzealous with the confetti from Party City, turning their carpet into a veritable rainbow he knows is going to need probably an hour or two of vacuuming to get out. There were more than a few party fouls with the cake, too, leaving equally colorful frosting splotches and sprinkles littering the floor. Everyone cleared out before it could get any worse, thankfully, leaving their apartment in a state of semi-disaster, like the aftermath of a toddler frat party – if toddler frat parties were a thing.

All in all, though, Frank is willing to call it a success.

“Loves his new rattle,” Laurel answers, as Chris creates a ruckus with the thing in her lap. “We may have a budding percussionist on our hands.”

“Here, buddy,” Frank murmurs, handing him his sippy cup instead and giving them a moment of peace when the baby finally abandons the toy. “One day when you’re older, you’re gonna be drinkin’ stuff that’s way more fun than apple juice on your birthday, promise.”

That finally gets a smile out of Laurel, though it’s forced. “Hey now. I happen to think apple juice is _very_ fun.”

They laugh together, but after sobering up, Frank looks closer at her, brow furrowed. She’s staring at Christopher on her lap but also _not_ staring at him at all, her gaze distant, like she’s looking at something a hundred miles away. There’s been something bothering her all day, sinister like a cloud hanging over her, and while Frank suspects he already knows what it is, he asks anyway.

“You okay?”

Laurel shakes her head, as if stirred out of a thought. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

He gives her a knowing look. “Laurel.”

Finally, she sighs, her entire body seeming to hunch in on itself. There’s pain written in the lines on her face, scrawled there like scars, reminders of deep wounds that’ve finally scabbed over but may never be fully healed. This day has unearthed so much pain, though they’ve done their best to bury it.

“I just…” She swallows. “I’ve been trying not to think about it, all day.”

Think about it. The elevator. Everything that’d followed. She almost lost her son twice before she ever even got to hold him, and he knows that as happy a day as this is, it also causes her terrible pain; to think that he didn’t come into the world to happy tears and welcoming arms, his arrival instead bloody and violent. This is the anniversary of all that, too, even if they try to pretend it isn’t.

“I know.” Frank places a reassuring hand on her knee, anchoring her to the present – not the past she’s lost in. “I know it’s a hard day.”

“I should be happy,” she chuckles, the sound thick with emotion. “I want to be happy, not think about any of it, but I… I can’t.” Frank listens, not interrupting, not adding anything. Just listening. “And I _am_ happy. I’m so happy I have him, and he’s safe, and healthy, but I just-” She exhales. “I keep thinking about it.”

“Pain like that don’t just go away once it’s over,” he soothes. “Can’t just expect yourself to be able to… box it up and forget about it.”

She meets his eyes, and something inside her breaks when she does, a fissure under her skin; a dam she’s built to keep the sorrow at bay. Like trying to patch leaks one by one in a sinking ship. It bursts and everything comes flooding forward, pooling in her eyes.

“I couldn’t protect him,” is all she can manage. “I almost lost him.”

“But you didn’t,” he reminds her. “You did so good for him, Laurel. You were so strong for him.”

“If I hadn’t ever done any of that… gone after my father, it never would’ve-” She sniffs. “I could’ve lost him, and it would’ve been my fault.”

Chris looks at her with something along the lines of vague confusion, perplexed by her tears. He reaches for her, almost in an act of comfort, and Laurel takes his tiny hand, gripping it as tight as she can, like the forces of the universe might conspire to tear him away from her again. She buries herself further into Frank’s side too, huddling him and Chris around her and finally taking a moment to breathe.

“You can’t blame yourself,” he tells her, grinning sadly. “If anything, blame me.”

“No,” she says and shakes her head, wiping her eyes, before repeating softly, “No blame.” She looks down at Chris, angling him toward Frank. “He doesn’t blame you. See?”

He’s never felt worthy of it, of Christopher’s love. Of hers. Of any of it. But he no longer tortures himself over that night, because he could spend a lifetime doing that and make himself miserable – when he could, just for once, allow himself to be happy.

And he _is_ happy. He draws her closer and presses a kiss to her hair, and he’s so, so happy.

“What’s your ole ma doin’ crying for anyway?” Frank jokes to the baby, who reaches for him. He reaches back, settling him into his lap. “He says it’s _his_ party and _he’s_ gonna cry if he wants to.” He lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Hey, bud, tell your ma you love her. Remember how? Love. Love.”

“La la,” is all Christopher babbles in response, but he can see the way Laurel melts regardless, and now there are tears on her cheeks once again; happy ones, this time.

It occurs to him they’re both finally learning how to let themselves be happy, for once.

“You taught him that?” she asks with a tearful laugh.

He did. He knew, somehow, there would come a time she would need it, need reassurance he couldn’t give her. He thinks he knew, deep down, that she would need it today.

Frank just shrugs. “Yeah, been workin’ on it for a few weeks. He’s gettin’ there. Go on, tell her again. Love. Love.”

The baby’s face lights up as he mimics the words. “La la.”

“I la la you, too,” Laurel says, pressing her lips to his forehead and pausing there for a moment to breathe in the smell of him. She looks up at Frank again, after, and reaches for his hand, linking them together like a circuit. “And you. I la la you, too.”

“Good,” he chuckles and slings an arm around her. “‘Cause I la la the _hell_ outta you.”


	17. The One with the Peanut Butter Heist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, guys, we are now officially pretending this is season 5. Got it? Good. Pete, you suck, if you're reading this. Suck eggs!
> 
> Also, this was inspired by the peanut butter baby vine. See [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGLsUg161fI).

“What’s that all over your hands?”

Frank looks suspiciously like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar when she steps in the door at the end of the day – although she’s pretty sure what’s all over his hands is _not_ cookies, nor the ingredients thereof. It looks more like-

“Is that… peanut butter? What did you-”

He holds up his sticky hands as if surrendering to the police. “Okay, I – before you freak out, just remember-”

 _Before you freak out_. That’s never a good way to preface something, and she’s flying in the direction of the kitchen before he has a chance to finish that sentence – and the moment she steps inside, she doesn’t remember to do anything _but_ freak out.

It looks like the scene of a brutal murder, if the victim were Mr. Peanut and he were bludgeoned to a creamy, peanut-buttery pulp, then dragged across the floor. There is peanut butter everywhere: smeared on the tile floor, a spot here and there on the walls, streaks on the kitchen counter and the largest concentration on the kitchen table, atop which sits Christopher, who is wearing only his diaper, coated in the stuff from head to toe and merrily patting more onto his stomach like he’s never had a better time in his life. There’s a jar of nearly-empty peanut butter next to him, the source of the disaster sitting there like a sticky, detonated grenade, and her mouth drops open at the sight.

“Oh. My. God.”

Frank rushes in behind her two seconds too late. “I – I know it looks bad, all right, I get it, but-”

“You _let_ him do this?” she hisses. “Frank, what the _hell_?”

“Hey, don’t say that around him. Babies listen, he’s gonna repeat it-”

“ _Stop deflecting_!”

“Okay, okay – look, I didn’t mean to let it go this far,” he hastens to explain. “But he got some on himself when he was eatin’ it earlier, and he thought it was the funniest thing ever, so I let him have some more, and then some more, and it just kinda… spiraled.”

She smooths her hands over her face. “Oh my God. Oh my _God_ , Frank.”

“I’ll clean it up, okay? And give him a bath. Promise. I just-” He sighs. “He was havin’ so much fun, Laurel, I didn’t wanna make him stop.”

Laurel finally lets herself relax, as the reality of the mess sinks in and the initial shock wears off. It’s nothing that can’t be cleaned up, because no mess ever really is, and watching Christopher paint himself with peanut butter while laughing hysterically all the while does make her melt – as does Frank standing there, hands all covered in the stuff, slowly handing him more ammo out of the jar as slyly as he can manage.

A smile works its way onto her lips. “He’s got you wrapped around his finger, y’know. You’re his accomplice.”

“This, by far,” he tells her, as he crouches down in front of Christopher and hands him another dollop of peanut butter, which the baby this time smears onto the table in front of him like a tiny peanut butter Picasso, “is the most fun crime I’ve ever been complicit in. Right bud?” He directs his attention to Christopher, raising his eyebrows and making a face. “You like that, huh? Prolly good for your skin. Moisturizin’. Tell your ma she should try it.”

Chris babbles a string of consonants – _ba ba ba_ – something that she thinks is probably intended to sound like _butter_ , before shoving his fingers into his mouth and getting a mouthful of the stuff.

“No thanks,” Laurel scoffs, folding her arms. “You got peanut butter in your beard, by the way.”

Frank moves a hand over his beard until he locates the rogue patch of peanut butter, then shrugs, unconcerned. “Occupational hazard of a peanut butter heist.”

“I cannot-” Laurel shakes her head, laughing. “I cannot believe you. You know you can’t just let him do whatever he wants for the rest of his life, right?”

“Aw, c’mon. It’s just peanut butter. Won’t stain anything. ‘Sides.” He shrugs again, this time a bit sheepish. “I kinda wanted to do it too.”

There’s always been a sort of boyish mischief about Frank and being with Christopher seems to bring it out even more, unlock something in his eyes; a spark, a little light, this disarming smile that makes it impossible to truly be mad at him. Frank is carefree in a way she never quite manages to be, and she knows Christopher needs that in his life. The baby looks the happiest she’s ever seen him, if she’s being honest, so Laurel thinks she can sanction this little peanut butter heist, this time and this time only.

“Fine,” she sighs, unfolding her arms. “But you’re cleaning all this up. _And_ bathing him.”

“Deal. But first-” He takes a step forward, raising his eyebrows and holding out his arms, peanut-butter-coated hands and all. “Gimme a hug.”

She ninja-dodges him just in the nick of time, teetering on her heels. “No – no, Frank, _do not_ , I swear-”

“What?” He feigns confusion and follows her, hands extended. “Don’t you love me? ‘Ey, Chris, your ma doesn’t love me!”

She laughs, despite herself. “Frank – I’m going to kill you, this blazer is dry clean only, don’t-”

He finally succeeds in trapping her in one of the corners, both of them laughing helplessly, and he doesn’t hug her, but he does reach out, placing a hand on her cheek and pecking her on the lips, leaving her with a smear of peanut butter on her face intentionally. Her clothes make it out unscathed, from what she can tell, but she’s laughing too hard to be very concerned with them at all, with Frank’s lips lingering over her mouth and his body pressed up against her.

“You are-” Laurel cuts herself off, pretending to be exasperated, though the smile on her face won’t quit. “You are incorrigible. You two together are trouble.”

“Sure are.”

“This is assault – I will _sue_ , I’ll-”

“Do it. I’m guilty as charged.” He wriggles his eyebrows and pecks her on the tip of her nose. “Guilty of lovin’ you. You’re the jelly to my peanut butter.”

Laurel chortles. “Since when do you tell horrible dad jokes? I’m appalled.”

“Hi appalled,” he chuckles. “I’m dad.”

Laurel just groans and pushes him off of her.


End file.
